Date: Monday, November 30, 2009, 6:00 AM
Most Accurate Method TO Determine Qibla Direction
To get the qibla directions in your home or work place use the following Steps:
2. This site needs an advance copy of the Program of Internet Explorer or Mozilla browser program.
3. Select Satellite to see the actual places, as the view of the program Google Earth.
4. Locate your home or your desired location. ( You can drag the map with the cursor to your desired location and zoom in )
5. You will find a sign + in the middle of the page Put your location in the middle of the mark.
6. You will find a red line pointing to the Ka'aba. |
If you wish to enter your postcode, then enter the name of the city followed by the post code. Example
" London W9 1QB " After you have selected Satellite you can zoom in further.
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People tend to use compass for determining Qibla, but they do not realize the errors involved in compass. Firstly, the compass is affected by metallic objects in the vicinity, in furniture, in building materials, or even buried in the ground, so the compass placed at different locations in the same room gives different directions. Secondly, the angle of Qibla can only be calculated from True North, and True North cannot be determined by compass. Compass points to magnetic North, (based on earths magnetic field, which is changing continuously, and sometimes has erratic behavior) that may be many degrees away from True North.
Qibla Compass: To account for the difference in magnetic North and true North, a Qibla Compass (of 40 zones) has been designed which comes with a little booklet giving a list of cities and a number for each city from 0 to 39. If you have a small booklet that has only a few cities of USA, then it is an outdated booklet printed more than 30 years ago. The numbers in that booklet have slightly changed in recent times because of continuously changing earth's magnetic field. A new booklet printed with a new compass is available from Halalco Books . This new booklet has almost 600 cities from North America and additional 600 cities from almost every country in the world. To see the most up to date list of Qibla direction from every country in the world.
To get the formula, how to calculate Qibla Direction: Click here.
To download a research paper by Dr. Kamal Abdali .
If you have Acrobat Reader, you will view this paper in your browser and can print it from there. Or send e-mail to Dr. Kamal Abdali.
Qibla from Sun
It is not advisable to determine Qibla using compass specially for Orienting Masajid. The following method which uses the sun is more reliable. It has been observed for centuries and reported in many books by Muslims around the world that two times a year the sun comes overhead above Ka'bah. This is observational fact for centuries, and is used to set the correct Qibla direction in places far from Makkah by Muslims for last so many centuries. Those two dates and times are:
May 28 at 9:18 UT
July 15 at 9:27 UT
When you observe the sun at these times (after converting it to your local time), you will be facing the Ka'bah giving you Qibla direction, because if there were a very high minaret over Ka'bah reaching up to the sky, then you will see it just like you are seeing the sun. Now, let us take a few examples. If you are in Islamabad, Pakistan (+5 hours time difference from Greenwich), the local time to observe the sun would be 2:18 pm on May 28, and 2:27 pm on July 15.
Similarly, if you are in Nova Scotia, Canada (-3 hours time difference from Greenwich), the local time to observe the sun would be 6:18 am on May 28, and 6:27 am on July 15.
If you are at a location that you cannot see the sun on the above mentioned two dates, then you can locate Qibla from the sun when it comes overhead at a point diametrically opposite of Makkah on the globe and look for the following two dates and times:
November 28 at 21:09 UT
January 13 at 21:29 UT
Face toward the shadow from the sun at these times (after converting it to local time) and you will be facing Ka'bah. If you can see the sun but cannot see the shadow, put your back towards the sun and your face will be towards Qibla.
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Locate your town .
From there you should be able to get the correct times for Qibla direction using the sun shadow method , which is the most accurate - for every day of the year
When you find your town click on :
Qiblah direction using the sun shadow (Most Accurate Method)
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Qiblah direction from the sun (Most Accurate Method):
The most accurate method for determining the Qiblah direction for mosques is the Sun. For most of the days at a specific time of the day, the sun shadow of a Sundial directly faces the Qiblah or the opposite of the S.D. shadow faces Qiblah direction. Also at noon time S.D. shadow or its opposite points to the Geographical North . These times can be calculated for everyday for any desired location.
Most people do not have access to programs that calculate the time when the Sundial shadow (or the opposite) points to the Qiblah direction; therefore, we at the Islamicfinder have decided to provide this service to help all Muslims Insha Allah to determine the Qiblah direction accurately provided that they use very accurate watch (or GPS timer). Based on your location, the program provides you with the following table:
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Sundial: The sundial is any straight vertical object which makes 90 degrees angle with the ground, e.g. Street's Lamp Posts.
G.N.Time: The time when the Sundial marks Geographical North. It is also know as noon time.
S.D. Shadow: The time when the Sundial Shadow points to Qiblah.
Opposite S.D. Shadow: The time when the Opposite of the Sundial Shadow points to Qiblah.
SD Shadow 90 degree: The time when the Sundial Shadow makes a 90 degree angle with the Qiblah.
*: The Sundial or the opposite does not point to Qiblah on that date.
The Compass Method:
Most people use compass to determine the Qiblah direction; however, the compass has two major problems:
a) The compass can be influenced by metallic objects in the vicinity (e.g. furniture); therefore a compass placed in different places in the same area can give different directions.
b) The compass points to magnetic north. The magnetic north varies from city to city and varies with time as well, and therefore magnetic north can not be used to fix Qiblah directions for mosques.
The computation of Qiblah is done by using the Geographical North. Then the values converted with respect to the magnetic north enable the use of the compass. These tables are available in small booklets with compasses for Qiblah direction. |
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More Info here :
Qiblah Project :
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Masjid An-Nabawi ============================== =================
Kabah, Masjid Al Haram, Makkah in 1371 AH
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A new technique for locating Qibla from your address is used on
